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Detailed Analysis Part I: Discussion
1. Where did the author spend her childhood?
2. Why did the author always feel that she ought to be somewhere else?
3. Why was it “a stiff and awkward lunch”? What did this show about the author? 4. How should the author have benefited from reading the six novels in Paragraph 2? 5. What did reading mean to the author when she was young? 6. What were the features of Victorian England?
peace, prosperity, refined sensibilities and self-confidence 7. Why does the author mention these three novels? 8. What are the common features of these three novels? 9. Why did the author prefer reading to playing?
? Traveled across the physical world;
? Traveled into my own spiritual world: identity, aspiration, morality →Books are my perfect island! 10. Why does the author read?
? Trips to other worlds;
? Journey into my own world; ? Perfect island (alone to not alone);
? Home, sustenance, great invincible companion ? Simply because she loves reading! ? Why do you read?
? Do you ever read simply because you love reading? Part I: Paraphrase
1. Perhaps restlessness is a necessary corollary of devoted literacy. (para.5) Questions for thinking:
? In what ways was the author restless? ? Do you agree with this statement?
? How do you understand Mark Twain?s saying, “Almost all of the writers are ?addicts.?”?
2. There was waking, and there was sleeping. And then there were books, a kind of parallel universe in which I might be a newcomer but was never really a stranger. (para. 7) Questions for thinking:
? Why did the author parallel waking, sleeping and reading? Part I: Words & Expressions (1)
? wander the world
? commit sth to memory
He committed the notes of that meeting to memory and then burned them.
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备 课 纸 任教课程 年 月 日
? aspire to sth; aspire to do sth
Different people aspire to different things.
Mary is ambitious enough to aspire to conversational fluency in Chinese in two months. We aspire to be the best within our field. Word-formation: undersung underestimated underdeveloped underdone
underfunded undermanned undernourished unerpaid underpopulated underused under- + past participle: not enough Part I. Exercise Fill in the blanks.
In one corner of the living room______ a club chair. I used to _______ on it, reading with my skinny legs ___________one of its arms. Of course, I had clear memories of normal childhood, ______ the rocks in the creek that ____________ Naylor?s Run to _______ for crayfish and laying pennies on the tracks of the trolley and running to _____ them when the trolley ___________. Part II Discussion:
1. What bias do people have against those who read much?
? Lazy, Aimless dreamer, Loner, Arrogant
2. What is the something in the American character that is hostile to the act of aimless reading?
? Reading is nothing more than a tool for advancement ? Sociability and community ? Go-out-and-get-going ethos ? Admiration of men of action
? Pragmatic tradition in America character →Pragmatism Pragmatism
Key tenets of pragmatism
? Primacy of practice
? Concrete thinking rather than conceptualization ? Naturalism
? Scientific methods ? Skepticism Prominent figures
Charles Sanders Peirce, William James and John Dewey 3. Why can an executive learn far more from Moby-Dick? 4. What do you think of books on success?
5. What are literary professionals? opinions of reading?
? Read to address problems
? Good and worthy reading vs. bad and trivial reading
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备 课 纸 任教课程 年 月 日
? What is the author?s attitude?→ Careerism vs. Reading Careerism
? Read only if there is some point to it
? Philosophy or English majors can?t do much with what they learn ? Read for purpose and dogged self-improvement Reading
? Read for the fun of reading itself
? Intellectual pursuits for their own sake
? Read for pleasure, spurred on by interior compulsion 6. What are the traits of the real clan of the book?
? Read not to judge the reading of others but to take the measure of ourselves ? Love reading for reading?s own sake Part II: Words & Expressions (1) pay lip service to
People pay lip service to their dreams of freedom, but many feel frightened by it. see to it that
We should see to it that all work done conforms to high standards. suspect v. (para.10)
? suspect sb of
It is perfectly all right, because the police had not suspected him of robbery. suspect adj. (para. 12)
Delegates evacuated the building when a suspect package was found.
be suspicious of (para. 11)
Two officers on patrol became suspicious of two men in a car. Part III: Discussion
1. What is the “lively subculture of characters”?
2. What does the author mean by quoting “Until I feared I would lose it, I never loved to read. One does not love breathing.”?
3. What is the author?s attitude toward literary criticism?
? The truth of reading is to be found in its people rather than its pundits and professionals.
Part Four. Reinforcement
Summary
Writing Techniques 1. symbol
? e.g. the club chair, the girl 2. comparison and contrast
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备 课 纸 任教课程 年 月 日
e.g. Reading for pleasure, spurred on by some interior compulsion, became as suspect as getting on the subway to ride aimlessly from place to place. (para. 12) ? e.g. I vs. others 3. simile and metaphor
? e.g. My perfect island. Structure of the Text 1. Between paragraphs
? By the time I became an adult, I realized that while my
satisfaction in the sheer act of reading had not abated in the least, the world was often as hostile, or as blind, to that joy… (para. 10)
? A transitional sentence: summary of the previous part + leading to new idea 2. Within paragraph
? my home, my sustenance, my great invincible companion→ ? most undersung, at least publicly→
? I did not read from a sense of superiority, or advancement, or even learning. The orthodox “history” of reading
1. Exclusively for the literati and the intellectually worthy
2. Gutenberg?s invention of the printing press: reading as a source of information for the many 3. Conclusion of critics and scholars: literature plummeting into intellectual bargain basement 4. Movies, television ? …What about today? Discussion ? If you have a choice, would you prefer to read a book or read on screen? ? What do you think of the trend of micro-reading today?
? What impacts do you think technological development has on reading? ? How should we adjust to these changes? Rhetorical devices:
? Alliteration: hale and hearty; safe and sound; pots and pans; bread and butter; vice and virtue;
part and parcel
Grammar:
? 1)four idioms with if: if only; if not; only if; what if ? 2) a few uses of there as a function word
?
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